Blasted Droid
by Bravenclaw
Summary: Meetra and Atton share a (mostly) quiet evening in the Ebon Hawk's cockpit. Rated M for safety.


_Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. If I did, I'd probably have a lot more cash._

* * *

_Atton? _

Atton woke up, space zooming past the cockpit canopy. The chrono said it was the middle of a galactic standard night cycle; they were still a few days from Nar Shaddaa. He stretched, feeling his back crack and pop before settling back against the back of the pilot's chair, propping his feet on the locked console. It was comfortable enough.

He'd refused the offer of a bunk in either dormitory from the start. No one wanted to share with Her Decrepit Majesty, least of all him, and he didn't fully trust the ex-Jedi in the beginning, no matter how interesting her underwear was. He thought about doing what Bao-Dur and Mira had done, and just set a cot up in his own space, but he'd grown accustomed to sleeping in his chair. Besides, it meant the next time someone tried to blast them into oblivion with zero warning, all he had to do was sit up.

He glanced over his shoulder at the cockpit door - closed - before closing his eyes again, wondering what had woken him. He could have sworn he'd heard his name, but maybe he'd been dreaming. He'd always been a light sleeper. The Mandalorian Wars, then serving under Revan, breaking Jedi, had reinforced the habit.

_Draw six. Plus five. Eleven. Minus four. Seven. Plus eight… _

_ Atton? Are you awake? _

He started, hearing Meetra's voice in his head. She never pried at his thoughts; she sent him messages, or occasionally skimmed the surface of his emotions. Most of the Force-using crew did that occasionally, even him. It was almost instinctive, like reading body language, and useful in close quarters. With the exception of that _schutta_ in the port dormitory, however, they respected each other's mental privacy.

He projected his thoughts (and annoyance) at her through the force. _Well, now I am, _he groused. _Something up? _

She didn't respond. That probably meant she was coming to see him. Their chats weren't uncommon, though rarely this late. He knew she had nightmares sometimes, too. Since she'd started training him, the distress she experienced in the moments before she woke up sometimes woke him. He'd never brought it up, though he suspected Malachor was the subject. He had nightmares of his own, after all.

Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he felt like she shared a stronger bond with him than with any of her other trainees. Everyone has regrets, but the darkness in each of their pasts was worse than most. She even carried the burden of Bao-Dur's guilt on top of her own. He had not caused death on nearly the scale she had, but the cruelty with which he'd discharged his duties as a Jedi-killer had more than made up for it.

There was a soft, perfunctory knock on the cockpit door, but it hissed open before he could say anything. She looked tired. Her long dark hair was tied back in a braid that sleep had made messy. There were deep shadows around her eyes. She was wearing her favorite gray leggings with a blue undershirt, her outer robe wrapped around her for warmth.

She perched on the co-pilot's seat, drawing her legs up and hugging them to her chest. "Can't sleep," she told him, answering his question. He grinned at her. "So you thought you'd wake me up so we could share in…" he glanced at the chrono, "... 0236 together?"

She gave a brief laugh. "No, I wasn't sure if you were awake. It's harder to figure out with you. I didn't mean to wake you."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Atton pulled a flask of Correllian whiskey from his jacket and took a sip. "Sweets, I never mind being woken up by a gorgeous woman in the middle of a night-cycle," he told her with a wink, offering her the flask. She rolled her eyes at him, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she put the flask to her lips.. They had grown to be very close friends, and her responses to his near-reflexive flirting had grown less irritated and more amused. She'd even returned fire in kind occasionally.

"Why are we headed back to Nar Shaddaa, anyway?" he asked. "Shouldn't we be going to Dantooine so you can meet with the Council?"

She sighed. "Probably. But… I don't know." she shrugged her shoulders. "They exiled me. Stripped the Force from me. I want answers, but…"

"...but not on _their_ terms?" Atton supplied. He took another sip from the flask, then passed it over.

"Something like that." She took another swallow. "I don't know. I thought we'd go to Nar Shaddaa, have some drinks, gamble some credits. Maybe let you head on over to the Red Sector." She cast him a look out of the corner of her eye.

He chuckled at the memory. _Hey, I just got out of prison. If we had a decent navicomputer, trust me, we'd be dropping out of hyperspace into the Nar Shaddaa Red Sector right now._ "I did say that, didn't I? Well… my priorities have changed. Somewhat." He met her gaze without blinking.

This silence was uncomfortable. They were close to an unspoken boundary, the border of more-than-friends. Atton had been around long enough to know there was something there. He knew he had feelings for her. She was beautiful, funny, smart… Strong enough to kick his ass, too. He'd confessed his time killing Jedi to her, and she forgave him, without reservation, and then agreed to train him to use the Force. She was a little hard to read, though.

"Since we're up, how about some Pazaak?" He drew his deck from his jacket. "Nar Shaddaa rules?"

She playfully punched his arm. "Scoundrel. I'm at a serious disadvantage, here." She gestured at her clothes, then jerked her head in the direction of the camera over the door. "And we both know you'd try to get Mira to grab you a copy of the vid."

"Can't blame a man for trying. Republic Senate rules it is."

* * *

They sat across from each other on the floor, occasionally taking sips from the flask of whiskey. A few hands in, feeling pleasantly buzzed, Atton commented, "So… I notice you're not making us do the 'there is no emotion' Jedi Code thing."

"I'm not a Jedi, remember? And I… I don't really believe in the code. Maybe when I was a Padawan, I did, but once you're an adult? We're not robots. We're sentients - people. Emotions, passion… it comes with the territory. It's how you use it that matters. Are you helping? Or hurting?"

"Why do the Jedi teach it at all?"

She shrugged. "I guess they just… always have. Though, as a cynical adult, I've often wondered if it's to keep an academy full of teenage hormones from getting nuts. Imagine the kind of bullshit kids get up to at a regular academy, and then give them the ability to choke one another with their minds. Shit. 24." She tossed her cards down.

"That's my hand then. Teenage hormones, huh? Why do I get the impression that you have personal experience there?" He suddenly remembered the clumsy nineteen-year-old he had been when one of the training officers had busted him and a female recruit in a storage closet at the Republic Academy after he tripped over his own pants and fell noisily against the inside of the door while the girl tried to stifle her giggling.

She blushed. "I _might_ have been caught kissing a boy a couple of years older than me once. He was tall. Tall, dark hair, gold lightsaber, sense of humor. Master Vrook made me meditate on the code for two weeks."

"A kiss? That's it?"

"'A Jedi must have no attachments, Padawan Surik, for that is the path to the Dark Side.'" Her impression of Vrook was uncanny. "And… well, it was a pretty intense kiss."

"Seriously, though. I thought you Jedi types lived by the code."

"I'm not-"

"Not a Jedi, yeah, yeah. Still."

"I think the code has its place, but it's too restrictive, and I'm training adults, not kids. I'm teaching you to use the Force as a tool, not to join the Jedi. Besides, we don't have time for philosophy. And… Well. I got used to _not _following the code during my exile."

"Oh?" That sounded intriguing.

She shrugged. "It was… freedom. I experienced a lot."

"Ah, a woman with experience," he leered.

She smiled. "A girl's gotta eat. I was a cantina dancer for a little while."

Atton slapped his leg. "Ha! Mira owes me 30 credits. I told her there was no way that was your first time dancing when you were at Vogga's. She said it was just some Jedi meditation trick." He tried not to think about how she looked in that costume, though it had certainly featured in more than a couple personal fantasies.

She blushed. "I was hoping you hadn't noticed. I tried to act awkward."

"You tried, but you were way too confident for someone who hadn't worn a dancer's outfit before. Sweets, no one will willingly walk around in public - on _Nar Shaddaa_ \- in that kind of getup if they're not already used to attracting attention like that. If you'd never done it before, you'd have demanded a robe. Nope - walked straight out of the 'fresher, and right out to that speeder like you owned the place."

She smiled. "You seemed to be paying an awful lot of attention to how I looked in that outfit. I'm surprised Mira didn't have to help you pick your jaw up off the floor."

"Well… I won't deny you looked great, but I've seen you in less."

"What, that awful kolto-tank jumpsuit?"

"No… you somehow managed to find much more interesting underwear between then and when you fought one of the Handmaidens at Atris' academy."

She remembered now. "I forgot you were in the room for that. Talking with Atris put me on edge. Yeah, I did make a brief stop on Citadel Station."

Atton snickered. "Clearly not a 'brief' stop. Those were _not_ briefs."

"Go space yourself, flyboy."

* * *

The cards were more or less forgotten on the floor. They were sitting in the pilot and copilot seats, respectively, gazing out the canopy, occasionally passing the flask of whiskey back and forth, watching space streak past them. They were both pleasantly buzzed, and Atton had successfully steered the conversation back towards her exile.

"So… were you ever _with_ anyone?"

"I dated. Even stuck with a guy for a few months."

That surprised him. "Didn't work out?"

"It did - for a little while. But he was a pilot, and he was gone for long stretches, and it turned out I wasn't the only girlfriend he was keeping around. He was the girl-in-every-port type."

"So… you like pilots?" He asked, looking at her, expecting a snappy comeback. Instead, she was silent, and he saw, for a split second, her gray eyes flick down to his lips.

He reached across to her, cupped her chin in his hand, and planted his lips on hers. It felt electric, like he'd been hooked up to a power coupling. She responded in kind, closing her eyes and gripping his drexyl-leather jacket. Atton felt the soft, firm pressure of her lips against his as he pulled her into his lap.

He teased her lips with his tongue and he felt her sigh against him, before she gently bit his lower lip. His heart lurched, and he could have sworn he felt her laugh quietly against him.

He broke off the kiss, running his thumb along her jaw. "I've been trying to figure out how to do that without getting shot since you wandered into the brig in that awful medbay jumpsuit on Peragus."

She laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't have shot you. You'd have gotten slapped. Maybe. Probably."

"If I can make a small confession, if I knew Kreia was digging at my mind, I'd usually picture you naked."

"Ah, that explains what she meant by 'base lusts' and 'indignities'." Meetra gave him a wicked grin, then leaned closer. "Want to show me what you were thinking about?" she murmured, kissing a spot just below his ear, and straddling his lap in the seat.

Atton responded by capturing her mouth with his, then kissing down her neck, his fingers finding the hem of her top as she leaned into him, head tilted to give him more access to the sensitive skin on her throat.

The intercom crackled. "Disgusted Query: Just what is it with you humans and your need to smear your mucous membranes on one another in full sight of the security cameras? If I ever have to witness that again, I will apply a blaster directly to my memory core." Atton froze, his hand halfway to her breasts inside her shirt.

Meetra closed her eyes. "Please tell me he commed the cockpit directly instead of broadcasting that to the entire ship."

"I can't tell," Atton said, but he had a sneaking suspicion that they were busted.

Meetra kissed him again, lingering a moment, before getting up. "I'm going to go kill that droid. We'll have to continue this later. Sorry about your… er, lightsaber." She winked at him, and left the cockpit, closing the door behind her. Atton thudded his head against the wall of the console, then drew his blaster from its holster and put one bolt directly through the kriffing security cam. _I'll give it a few minutes for everyone to go back to bed, and then I'm taking a nice, cold shower._

As she tried to sneak back to the starboard dormitory, Meetra heard the muffled sound of a blaster shot, and, looking, saw that the camera image for the cockpit was black. She grinned.

As she entered the common area, she heard a slow clap, and saw Mira, sleep-tousled, leaning against the wall outside her closet. "Please tell me you finally hooked up a power coupling with our pilot and resolved the sexual tension you could cut with a vibroblade?"

Feeling uncharacteristically mischievous, Meetra responded, "Things were looking that way, until we were rudely interrupted. I take it that went out to the whole ship? Where's the blasted droid?"

"I told him he should probably find somewhere to hide so one of you didn't reduce him to scrap. I think he's in the Medbay."

She groaned. "Well, I definitely don't want to deal with Mical right now. He'll insist on meditating on the blasted Code. _There is no passion, there is serenity._" She rolled her eyes.

Mira smiled. "Look, we'll be at Nar Shaddaa in a couple of days. Just find a clean place, get a room, and fuck each other's brains out for a week, because otherwise the _rest_ of us won't have any serenity. Besides, I have a feeling there will be some hard days ahead, and the betting pool is an unnecessary distraction."

Meetra closed her eyes. "Please tell me you didn't start a betting pool on when Atton and I were going to hook up."

"_I _didn't start a betting pool. Canderous did. It was, like, the first thing he did when he came onboard. But I have about 500 credits riding on you - heh, _riding_ \- hooking up within the next Galactic Standard week. Everyone but Mical and Kreia has a bet in - even the droids. HK probably interrupted you intentionally because the timeframe it bet on isn't for another Galactic Standard month. T3 lost last week. I have no idea where it came up with 500 credits. Bao-Dur bet on 'never', so really he lost the second he put money in. "

"T3 won creds off Atton playing Pazaak. Word to the wise - it cheats." Meetra pursed her lips. "I want 50 percent of your blasted winnings."

"25."

"35."

Mira considered it. "Deal. Wanna borrow my stun cuffs?"


End file.
